[Sur] Motion to Change The Sugar Labs Rules of Governance

[Caryl Bigenho]

Dear Fellow Sugar Labs Members

Recently the SLOB has become extremely dysfunctional. When this happens to this degree, it may be time to look for a remedy. Sometimes this will best be accomplished by a change in personnel. Here are what some websites have to say about this issue:



* “Occasionally, a board member needs to be removed from the board. In some cases, a conflict of interest or unethical behavior may be grounds to remove an individual from the board. In other cases, the behavior of a board member may become so obstructive that the board is prevented from functioning effectively.”

http://www.blueavocado.org/content/four-ways-remove-board-member



* “Opposing viewpoints are to be expected, but they should never cross the line into becoming obstructive to the organization’s mission. When board members breach into destructive or demoralizing behavior, the rest of the board needs to make a decision about removing one board member for the good of the whole.”

http://www.boardeffect.com/blog/how-to-remove-a-board-member/



* “Your operating bylaws should have a procedure outlined on how to remove a board member. Make sure the steps are in there now, and before you run into any problems down the road. The board should keep documentation on why the board member is being removed and the steps they take.”

http://nonprofithub.org/board-of-directors/how-to-remove-a-nonprofit-board-member/


The Sugar Labs Rules of Governance provide for removal by a majority vote of the Community Members. However this is a very cumbersome business. Most organizations provide for a majority vote of the board members. Our current Rules of Governance say:

“The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any time by a majority vote of the Community Members.”

https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance

To simplify this process, I therefore wish to propose the following change to the Sugar Labs Rules of Governance:

Motion to be voted on by the SLOB members:

These lines in the Sugar Labs Rules of Governance shall be changed wherever they occur
from:

"The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any time by a majority vote of the Community Members" to

"The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any time by a majority vote of the Sugar Labs Oversight Board."

You folks may wish to tweak the language a bit, but I have tried to keep it as simple as possible.

Abrazos,

Caryl Bigenho

[James Cameron]

On Tue, Aug 15, 2017 at 02:07:04AM +0000, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
> [...] Motion to be voted on by the SLOB members:
>
> These lines in the Sugar Labs Rules of Governance shall be changed
> wherever they occur from:
>
> "The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position
> at any time by a majority vote of the Community Members" to
>
> "The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position
> at any time by a majority vote of the Sugar Labs Oversight Board."

Why should members give up this right?

Instead, you might seek to add the right to the board.

Your next step is to achieve a seconding of the motion, and organise a
formal vote of the membership. May I suggest the Membership and
Elections Committee.

> Recently the SLOB has become extremely dysfunctional. [...]

I'm not so sure. What I see is lack of time, very brief responses,
failure of communication, unshared expectations, ... which in time
will result in more robust and public debate of the issues. Also,
some of the board are being quite busy and enthusiastic, which is a
wonderful thing to see.

Members of Sugar Labs elected the oversight board members, and another
election is coming up; the timetable is published. Election
would be the perfect time for members to choose who to remove; by
electing the people it wants.

https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance/Elections_2017

@Samuel, do you think this timetable adequate? ;-)

--
James Cameron
http://quozl.netrek.org/
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[Caryl Bigenho]

Yeah... To Sam Greenfield's comment. That is the problem. There is no definition of what a "majority" of community members constitutes. The last election was done with far less than half of the actual members participating. Somehow an old list was used, even though Samson and I worked very hard the previous year to get an up to date list it, evidently was not used as many of us (myself included) were not on the list used last year. I think they finally have ta more complete list for this year's election.


The board has seven members. A majority of the board should be sufficient to make a decision about whether a board member is being an obstructionist and causing a lot of discouragement.


Asking the general membership to vote could turn into a popularity contest as they aren't generally aware of what goes on in the board meetings. In other words, they really wouldn't know what the actual dynamics of the board are and why little gets done.


For the future of Sugar Labs it is important to have an Oversight Board that can get things done. That is not the case now. That is why I am proposing the motion.


To James.... yes, you are probably right. So, keeping the right of the membership to vote and adding the power to the board seems like a more logical move. So I'll change my motion to read as follows:


Motion to be voted on by the SLOB members:

These lines in the Sugar Labs Rules of Governance shall be changed wherever they occur
from:
(Changes in italics)
"The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any time by a majority vote of the Community Members"
to:

"The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any time by a majority vote of the Community Members or by a majority vote of the members of the Sugar Labs Oversight Board”



Caryl

________________________________
From: IAEP <iaep-***@lists.sugarlabs.org> on behalf of Samuel Greenfeld <***@greenfeld.org>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2017 7:18:54 PM
To: IAEP SugarLabs
Subject: Re: [IAEP] Motion to Change The Sugar Labs Rules of Governance

I disagree with this. While I have been on boards with an annoying member or two, letting a few board members vote the others off leads to coups and other odd politics. I have never personally seen such language in governing documents before.

That said, what is considered a quorum of the Community Members for a recall vote (the majority of those present having to vote in favor of it)?


On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 10:07 PM, Caryl Bigenho <***@laptop.org<mailto:***@laptop.org>> wrote:

Dear Fellow Sugar Labs Members

Recently the SLOB has become extremely dysfunctional. When this happens to this degree, it may be time to look for a remedy. Sometimes this will best be accomplished by a change in personnel. Here are what some websites have to say about this issue:



* “Occasionally, a board member needs to be removed from the board. In some cases, a conflict of interest or unethical behavior may be grounds to remove an individual from the board. In other cases, the behavior of a board member may become so obstructive that the board is prevented from functioning effectively.”

http://www.blueavocado.org/content/four-ways-remove-board-member



* “Opposing viewpoints are to be expected, but they should never cross the line into becoming obstructive to the organization’s mission. When board members breach into destructive or demoralizing behavior, the rest of the board needs to make a decision about removing one board member for the good of the whole.”

http://www.boardeffect.com/blog/how-to-remove-a-board-member/



* “Your operating bylaws should have a procedure outlined on how to remove a board member. Make sure the steps are in there now, and before you run into any problems down the road. The board should keep documentation on why the board member is being removed and the steps they take.”

http://nonprofithub.org/board-of-directors/how-to-remove-a-nonprofit-board-member/


The Sugar Labs Rules of Governance provide for removal by a majority vote of the Community Members. However this is a very cumbersome business. Most organizations provide for a majority vote of the board members. Our current Rules of Governance say:

“The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any time by a majority vote of the Community Members.”

https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance

To simplify this process, I therefore wish to propose the following change to the Sugar Labs Rules of Governance:

Motion to be voted on by the SLOB members:

These lines in the Sugar Labs Rules of Governance shall be changed wherever they occur
from:

"The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any time by a majority vote of the Community Members" to

"The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any time by a majority vote of the Sugar Labs Oversight Board."

You folks may wish to tweak the language a bit, but I have tried to keep it as simple as possible.

Abrazos,

Caryl Bigenho

[James Cameron]

G'day Caryl,

You are on the member list this year. You can check by downloading
the Open Document spreadsheet on the Wiki;

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:SL_Member_List_verified_June_2017.ods

which is linked from https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Members

The Membership and Elections Committee is responsible for this list,
and the committee this year is Samson Goddy, Laura Vargas and Ignacio
Rodríguez.

https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance/Committees

Last year you were on the committee. I've no idea how last year's
committee managed to update the list and then not use it; did you ever
hear how it happened?

It looks to me that the oversight board is getting things done, but
there are very few people with enough time to do what has been
decided. So if I was a member, your proposed referenda wouldn't get
my vote.

Have you considered nominating for the oversight board this year?

See https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance/Elections_2017
for the election timetable.

Nobody has nominated yet.

On Tue, Aug 15, 2017 at 07:26:58PM +0000, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
> Yeah... To Sam Greenfield's comment. That is the problem. There is no
> definition of what a "majority" of community members constitutes. The last
> election was done with far less than half of the actual members participating.
> Somehow an old list was used, even though Samson and I worked very hard the
> previous year to get an up to date list it, evidently was not used as many of
> us (myself included) were not on the list used last year. I think they finally
> have ta more complete list for this year's election.
>
> The board has seven members. A majority of the board should be sufficient to
> make a decision about whether a board member is being an obstructionist and
> causing a lot of discouragement.
>
> Asking the general membership to vote could turn into a popularity contest as
> they aren't generally aware of what goes on in the board meetings. In other
> words, they really wouldn't know what the actual dynamics of the board are and
> why little gets done.
>
> For the future of Sugar Labs it is important to have an Oversight Board that
> can get things done. That is not the case now. That is why I am proposing the
> motion.
>
> To James.... yes, you are probably right. So, keeping the right of the
> membership to vote and adding the power to the board seems like a more logical
> move. So I'll change my motion to read as follows:
>
> Motion to be voted on by the SLOB members:
>
> These lines in the Sugar Labs Rules of Governance shall be changed wherever
> they occur
> from:
> (Changes in italics)
> "The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any
> time by a majority vote of the Community Members"
> to:
>
> "The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any
> time by a majority vote of the Community Members or by a majority vote of the
> members of the Sugar Labs Oversight Board”
>
> Caryl
>
> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> From: IAEP <iaep-***@lists.sugarlabs.org> on behalf of Samuel Greenfeld
> <***@greenfeld.org>
> Sent: Monday, August 14, 2017 7:18:54 PM
> To: IAEP SugarLabs
> Subject: Re: [IAEP] Motion to Change The Sugar Labs Rules of Governance
>
> I disagree with this. While I have been on boards with an annoying member or
> two, letting a few board members vote the others off leads to coups and other
> odd politics. I have never personally seen such language in governing
> documents before.
>
> That said, what is considered a quorum of the Community Members for a recall
> vote (the majority of those present having to vote in favor of it)?
>
> On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 10:07 PM, Caryl Bigenho <[1]***@laptop.org> wrote:
>
>
> Dear Fellow Sugar Labs Members
>
> Recently the SLOB has become extremely dysfunctional. When this happens to
> this degree, it may be time to look for a remedy. Sometimes this will best
> be accomplished by a change in personnel. Here are what some websites have
> to say about this issue:
>
> □ “Occasionally, a board member needs to be removed from the board. In
> some cases, a conflict of interest or unethical behavior may be grounds
> to remove an individual from the board. In other cases, the behavior of
> a board member may become so obstructive that the board is prevented
> from functioning effectively.”
> [2]http://www.blueavocado.org/content/four-ways-remove-board-member
>
> □ “Opposing viewpoints are to be expected, but they should never cross
> the line into becoming obstructive to the organization’s mission. When
> board members breach into destructive or demoralizing behavior, the
> rest of the board needs to make a decision about removing one board
> member for the good of the whole.”
> [3]http://www.boardeffect.com/blog/how-to-remove-a-board-member/
>
> □ “Your operating bylaws should have a procedure outlined on how to
> remove a board member. Make sure the steps are in there now, and before
> you run into any problems down the road. The board should keep
> documentation on why the board member is being removed and the steps
> they take.”
> [4]http://nonprofithub.org/board-of-directors/how-to-remove-a-
> nonprofit-board-member/
>
> The Sugar Labs Rules of Governance provide for removal by a majority vote
> of the Community Members. However this is a very cumbersome business. Most
> organizations provide for a majority vote of the board members. Our current
> Rules of Governance say:
>
> “The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any
> time by a majority vote of the Community Members.”
>
> [5]https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance
>
> To simplify this process, I therefore wish to propose the following change
> to the Sugar Labs Rules of Governance:
>
> Motion to be voted on by the SLOB members:
>
> These lines in the Sugar Labs Rules of Governance shall be changed wherever
> they occur
> from:
>
> "The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any
> time by a majority vote of the Community Members" to
>
> "The members of the Oversight Board may be removed from the position at any
> time by a majority vote of the Sugar Labs Oversight Board."
>
> You folks may wish to tweak the language a bit, but I have tried to keep it
> as simple as possible.
>
> Abrazos,
>
> Caryl Bigenho
>
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> [6]***@lists.sugarlabs.org
> [7]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
> References:
>
> [1] mailto:***@laptop.org
> [2] http://www.blueavocado.org/content/four-ways-remove-board-member
> [3] http://www.boardeffect.com/blog/how-to-remove-a-board-member/
> [4] http://nonprofithub.org/board-of-directors/how-to-remove-a-nonprofit-board-member/
> [5] https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance
> [6] mailto:***@lists.sugarlabs.org
> [7] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> ***@lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


--
James Cameron
http://quozl.netrek.org/
_______________________________________________
Lista olpc-Sur
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